Saturday -6-28-08 part 2

Leavenworth, WA


Our first day's ride ended in Leavenworth. The weather was warm and folks needed a break. I managed to gather all of them up and get a group photo. No small task. Most of them were hiding under the shade trees. It was nearly 100 degrees there.




Here is a shot of our pack of Dawgs. K9 to the bone!

Jimmy D, Cheeto, McNalley, Dunna, Ornery, Iggy
Bert, Jewells, Fast Freddy

Bert with our four Grand Prize Winners! The guy in the center won a couple times.

This lucky guy had a big heart. He was a genuinely nice guy too. He won the 50-50 pot ($250) which he donated to the Chaplain. He won four rounds of Golf, which he gave away and he won dinner for two at the Blake Island Salmon Bake, which he kept. He said he just came for the food!

Jimmy D won the car detail from Gene Pankney. He was pretty tickled about that.


Our Grand prize winner was This guy. He won a weekend package at Hotel 1000 in Seattle

After all of this festive behavior, we rode to near by Wenatchee and collapsed in the Red Robbin.

From left to right is Mike Romaine (almost retired), Carol, my wife (just tired), Darrel Hughes, Jim Jensen, Ken Monner and Jim Young (all retired). The restaurant was air conditioned, which saved our lives.

Later in the day, we cooled off a bit down at the tavern in the Red Robbin. One of the guys decided to tell the waitress that it was Steve Stockinger's birthday (it wasn't). She brought him a fancy dessert and we all sang happy birthday to him. Steve is pretty much of a goof ball, so while we all sang to him, he got up and began dancing with the waitress. It's one of those things you just had to be there to see... Well, while he was playing the fool, someone tied a balloon to his rear end. He was a bit distracted so he didn't notice it right away. Guys were calling him over to talk to him... first here, then over there. Every where he went his little balloon followed. Well, after a couple beers, it was sorta funny. Did it end there? Nope. Once he found it and discovered what we were all laughing at, he decided to run around the table a couple of times with his balloon in tow. Some of the guys just about choked to death watching it. Some of us will do anything for cheap entertainment.

This pretty much brought day one of our ride to a close. With 51 bikes, no mishaps, broken bikes or injuries, we called it a success. After lunch Carol and I went to our hotel room in the Comfort Inn. Our air conditioner was broken... it was hot in there.

Day two will start tomorrowat about 0800 at chow.

Saturday -6-28-08

Ride Day!

Saturday morning arrived after what seemed like an eternity. The first thing we had to do was hit Marcia's Silver Spoon and check out the pancakes. Guys like us have to fuel not only the bike, you know.

"Many hands make light work," my mom used to say and after a bit of set up, "we had her whipped." I could sse first hand that the planning pays off at times like this. We were off and running like a Swiss watch.

Truth be told, I had a good time with this and it was fun to be a part of it.

One by one folks came by and signed up. It was good to see faces from the past. For me, it's one of the best parts. Keeping in touch is not always my strong suit. I had forgotten just how important a thing like that can be.

Our Memorial Ride for 2008 honored Jim hargrove. He passed away the day before the ride. I suppose that was part of the reason I enjoyed seeing old friends so much today. Below is a poster of our fallen officers. Its the reason we do what we do.

Only the last two were personally known to me. Good guys both of them. God willing the poster will get no longer.

Several generous businesses donated things for us to raffle off. We had a poster of the big prizes. Several other things were raffled off as well. That sort of thing makes all of us feel like school kids on the night before Christmas. What can I say? This is the part of the ride that generated a gift for the Chaplancy. I am sure they were greatfull.




Bert and Jewels with Chaplains Pat Hogan and Russ Guppy.

Chaplain Hogan rode along with us. We had 51 bikes in all. I (personally) was hoping for 40. I guess I need more faith.

One group of fellas calling them selves "The Good O'l Boys" showed up with 10 bikes. They were a nice group of folks.

Here is a shot of some of the crowd. It got to the point where they would not all fit in the camera.

Bert and Jewels gave all of us the "What for" brief before we kick started the ride. Chaplains Hogan and Guppy had a few words for us and a short prayer, then we hit the trail.

"Ornery" (Dave Henry) led the pack and I brought up the rear. That combinatioin worked well because we both had CB radios and we worked together like sheep dogs to keep the flock together. The line of bikes had a reaq impressive look to it as we headed down the freeway to our first stop. One truck driver found our channel and complimented us on our long streak of chrome. Folks were waving and it just feld good to me to be there. It's a hard thing to explain. I believe I had just discovered why it is that guys like us want to be a part of a motorcycle club. There just aint noth'n else like it.

About an hour down the road we had our first stop in North Bend. Our Road Captain (Jewels) plans things like "butt breaks." He thinks of everything. Here are a couple shots of our butt break:

The handsome guy below is yours truly having a great time.

I only have one picture of us in Cle Elum. It's one of me fooling around on a three wheeler.

After a few more miles and another world famous butt break in Cle Elum, we arrived in Leavenworth, WA. I will put that stuff in a new post. This one has gotten long.

Thursday - 06-26-08

Preparing for our upcoming Memorial Ride, we decided to hit a Taco Thursday at the local Harley dealer. For those of you who do not know about Taco Thursday's: Taco Thursday is basically a party at the Harley dealer where guys come together and enjoy the spirit of motorcycling. Tacos are just a buck and the friendships are free. Several of the Dawgs rode in and met a few friends; some old and some new. We passed out fliers and generated interest in our upcoming ride.

One has got to love bikes to stand in line in a parking lot to eat tacos....

Here is a shot of "Beak" (left), one of our retired breathern with Bert our club president. They're both goofy.

Another Old Friend was Dave Moore (left). It was good to bump into him. He has been retired for some time now. I always enjoyed working for him. McNalley is on the right. McNalley is one of the original members of our chapter.



This shot could be called "Curley, Larry and Moe" but it is really Bert, Dunna and McNalley. I think McNally might be throwing me a kiss. Maybe he just loves tacos.








Below is the service manager at the Harley dealer. His name is Chris Neeley. His dad was an icon where we work. Both of them are really nice guys and full of stories from hell to breakfast. I was pleasently surprised when Mike (Chris's dad) told me he worked at the Harley store in Fife. It's always nice to have a friendly face in the service department. When I snapped this shot, Chris was in the middle of a tall tale of some kind.


























After all of the tacos and hot air, we headed out to our meeting at Cheeto's house. We had to get ready for the ride on Saturday. The ladies got the ride paskets ready, folded shirts and figured out how to run the raffles while we watched them. It was exhausting, but Cheeto had cold beer in the refrigerator. I had two of them while I watched the girls.

Our trusty steeds were tied to the hitching post out front. We had to impress the neighbors.

The meeting went well and we figured out that we had most of the wrinkles ironed out of our plans. By golly, we were ready to ride!

Saturday - 5-31-08

Lately I have just had short rides around town doing mundane things. Today, I told Carol I wanted to go ride the bike a bit today. She said she wanted to go along. We decided to go look around at other houses to see what color we liked the best. We are trying to figure out which colors to paint our house. It needs a face lift.

At first we criss crossed around there and there looking all around. Then we decided we needed lunch. We rolled into the Tides.

The service there was TERRIBLE today. That sort of surprised me... The good news was that Carol wanted a longer ride. She asked if we could go to Mt Rainier or maybe the Olympics. Due to the hour and the way the skies looked, we decided to save those rides for a better day.

After lunch, we crossed over the bridge and drove along the waterfront to Steilacoom. Then we headed up to Pt Defiance and poked along 5 mile drive and back to Gig Harbor.

By this time I thing we figured out that we needed a shade of green and lighter trim. We also figured out the we needed some dessert. A short stop at the Harvester and we were in good shape again. While we were working on the pie, we decided to look through our travel books and find a good ride for a future weekend.

Sunday - 5-18-08

Today, I washed my bike (Babe). I removed the saddle bags, the seat, scrubbed the whitewalls, spit shined everything. It took me about two hours. After that it was about 11:30 and I was hungry. I fired up Babe and took her to Anthony's where I had Sunday Brunch. Seafood scramble if you must know (by the way, I named my bike after Paul Bunyon's blue ox. We were both raised in Minnesota. We used to play together her as children. But enough about that).

I was sitting there looking out of those huge windows they have there and came to the realization that I had to get the bike out on the road again.

I called a few of the Road Dawgs. I don't have all of them saved in my phone, but I got a "no-go" from all of the ones I called. It seemed that the Road Dawgs had been kenneled. I managed to dig out under the fence and went home for my camera. I wanted to go up around Mt Rainier the "other way." For me that is through Enumclaw. I just decided to take Hwy 410 all the way.

Here is a shot of the Mt from Bonney lake:

I made my way through Enumclaw and was pointed toward the Mt. I passed a sign that said Cayuse and Chinook passes were closed. Bummer! That meant I wouldn't get to go all around the mountain.

I stopped into the Greenwater General Store and grabbed myself a soda. Riding can be thirsty work.


Here is the Green River. Does this look green to you?


I passed Skookum Falls:


The view point sign comes with it's own bullet holes:


410 is closed off right at the turn off to Crystal Mt Ski Resort.

I decided to go up to Crystal Mt. It was only 6 more miles. Besides that Road Dawgs don't quit, dammit! There is one spot on that road that has a pretty good view. See?

See, that the snow is almost gone... so open the road up, already!

This is a bit of snow where the skiers do their thing, but not very much.

This is how far up into the snow I got today (how many guys do you know that take pictures like this? Arent you glad you know me?).

The parking lot had a lot of "snirt" around it. We used to get a lot of that in the spring in Minnesota. Snirt is a mixture of snow and dirt.

See, you can learn real cool stuff by reading this blog. How many guys can say they know about snirt.

After all of this scientific snow research, I headed back down the way I came. Back at Green water, I stopped in at the Naches Tavern for something to eat. The service is non existent there. I forgot to bring my own, so I left.

Continuing on, I passed by a real good shot of Mountain scenery from Hwy 410. Here it is:

I tried to call the bride several times on this trip but there was no cell service up on the mountain. I finally got "cell service" when I got to Enumclaw. She was home! With her now dog, "Mandy". While I was in Enumclaw I stopped in at a place I had found on http://www.rrobsnet.com/. This guy rates various places, roads, even hamburgers! He rides around with a cameras attached to his bike. His site has video clips of his rides. Check it out one day. Anyway, the place I stopped at was Wally's. Here is a shot of it:

There were a bunch of bikes at this place when I got there. I handed out some of our club fliers. These guys said they were a group from Destination Harley from Puyallup. I wanted to get the word out to as many people as possible!!

I continued on home on 410 then Valley Ave. As I was going past the Firwood Tavern (which had just burned down on Friday) I saw a Fife cop doing site security. He got some fliers too.

I decided to take Ruston Way home today. It seemed like a nice day for it. I stopped by and talked to a friend I saw down there and jawed for a bit. Speaking of jawing, JAWS came by on his bike. Jaws retired something like 5 or 6 years ago. It was good to see him. He got a few fliers also.

Today was a real nice day and a bit cooler than yesterday. It was a good time. When I got home, my wife had returned with her prize. Her name is Mandy. Here she is:

Its good to have them both home!

When I closed the garage door this evening, I had just over 6,000 on my bike. I am finding that with this nice weather, I am having trouble keeping fuel in the tank and bugs off of the windshield. Such a problem to have...

Saturday - 5-17-08

What a day!!!

The weather was just about as good as it could get. The weatherman had given us a "heads-up" earlier this week, but how many times do we believe that bonehead? Today we will break out the sun screen. Bert (the Road Dawg king) has suggested we take a ride through this meteorological fluke and do the Road Dawgs proud (dammit!). Jim was tasked with planning our route (because he knows all the roads in the world) and we put together a half baked comedy of errors that turned out to be the most fun thing any of us had done in awhile. Here is a picture of our human map.

For starters, we had trouble finding a time to kick this thing off. "12?" "12:30?" "How about 1?" "Well maybe when I get the Direct Dish Guy off of my roof" (Bert)?? "How about we just leave him behind and go do our own thing?"(Jim) "I can only go for a short time... I have work to do."(Rob).

I was up for anything.

I had printed up some fliers for our annual memorial ride. Before we got going this morning, I took some to the Gig Harbor police station and to Eagle Leather hoping to drum up some business. While I was at Eagle Leather, I decided to get myself a new helmet... one that wasn't quite so hot. I got myself one of those black half-shell helmets with the removable neck collar. It doesn't offer as much coverage, but it makes me look cool like all the other guys.

Last night my wife left me a message on my phone. Why a message? Well because I didn't answer her. Why? Well I was riding through yesterdays blog entry (sure, go ahead and look it up). Anyway, she has been looking for a dog. Several she had found hadn't worked out for one reason or the other, so when she found one, she peeled out of here in high gear. The message: "Hi, honey I found a dog in Potlatch, Idaho. I am going to go get it. See you in a day or two. Love you, bye."

Two things immediately came to mind: 1) Who is going to feed me? 2) Whoo-Hoo I can ride as much as I want and I don't have to do the dishes! that last one is actually two things. There isn't room here to explain how my mind works...

After all of the goofy stuff we had to go through to get to this point, Rob, Jim, his friend Duane and I met in the park and ride in Gig Harbor at 12:35 and determined to attack the Hood canal. We hit SR 16 and made our way to Purdy, across the spit, and onto Hwy 302 around part of Case Inlet and onto Hwy 3 to Belfair. We needed something to drink by this time. We hit Starbucks.






After wetting out whistles, we readied ourselves for more of this beautiful weather.


Rob had to go sell some houses or some thing, so he bagged out on us. Here is a shot if him losing out on the rest of this world class Wheel Spinning Experience!





After getting rid of Rob, we planned the rest of our day. Jim And Duane conferred for a bit, then they told me what WE wanted to do. (Just kidding, these guys know their way around).



We hit the road "with both feet running", so to speak. We had decided to make a trip around the Hood Canal because it takes much longer than just going home (who wants to do that?).



We took North Shore Road to Tahuya, made our way to Dewatto, where the scenery is really great:




The roads seemed all to familiar because I had been down them just a few days earlier. The weather was so much better and it was a lot more fun having some company to travel with. Right around Dewatto the road gets real "twisty." I liked going over that part again. This motorcycle stuff is a real hoot.



Apparently Dewatto doesn't have a very good marching band...


We went down the road a piece or two (near Holly) then Jim pulled to the side of the road just after a great place to take a picture (timing is everything) and asked me if I wanted a shot. Here it is. 100 yards back it was spectacular...


At Seabeck we pulled over and took a short break. As it turns out, all three of us were addicted to technology. Like clock work we pulled out our cell phones and got our Jones on.


After that we headed for the Hood Canal Bridge and Hwy 101.


Somewhere between the Hood Canal Bridge and Potlatch, I realized that my 4 hour butt was beginning to sag. I was a bit relieved when Jim pulled over to take a break. A bottle of Snapple and a milky way and I was ready for a few more miles. Because the stars were aligned just right today, just about the time we were ready to zoom off into the sunset, Bert came rolling by and into the parking lot! He had Blanca with him. After exchanging "Hey, what are you doing here?" and "wow, what are the chances?" We headed out around the tip of the canal past the town of Union where I spotted another place to take a picture. I hollered something to Bert about stopping to take a picture, but I am sure he did not hear me. I pulled to the side of the road and dug for my camera. Bert went on a bit further, then made a u-turn and came back after me. He returned just in time to catch me putting my camera away. Of course, Jim and Duane just kept going (those guys are like that). Here is the shot:


What can I say?


A mile or two down the road we found Jim and Duane waiting for us at an intersection. Jim signaled for Bert and I to take the lead. By this time my fuel was getting low and we stopped into a gas station at Belfair. After that, we turned the wrong way and headed to Gorst. We had planned to go through the Key Peninsula, oh well.


We went through Gorst and back onto SR 16. Jim and Duane went home while Bert and I peeled off and headed to the Hy Iu Hee Hee where the waitress worked the tap a bit for us. I snapped a shot of Bert and Blanca at the "Hy Iu":


Bert, Blanca and I discussed world problems and solved the universe. Then we hopped on our bikes one last time and headed for the barn.


All in all, this was a great day. We rode about 220 miles and logged 1,000 smiles.




I will be heading out Monday somethere. I am not sure where I might go yet. Stay tuned for more "Wheel Spinning Adventures!" But first it's time to wash my bike.